Nearly 100,000* Christmas lunches could be put on hold by the most unwelcome of festive mishaps – car breakdowns.

Analysis of Warranty Direct’s 50,000 live policies reveals that, with an average annual failure rate of 36.5% across all makes and models, some 30,000 individual vehicles could break down on Christmas Day.

According to Warranty Direct’s unique Reliability Index (www.reliabilityindex.com), electrical issues, particularly batteries, are expected to be the root cause of more than 25% of all Yuletide breakdowns.

Assuming an average of three occupants per car on Christmas morning, breakdowns could strand nearly 100,000 people on the big day.

Despite being more reliable than average, Vauxhall Corsa owners are the most likely to be affected on Christmas morning – with 1.1 million registered in the UK and a failure rate of 36%, that’s almost 1,200 of the UK’s third most popular model that will break down.

The least reliable model among the top-10 most popular is the BMW 3-series; however, the executive saloon car can boast only 650,000 registered examples on UK roads compared to more than a million Corsas.

Top-10 most popular models by number of registered vehicles & amount predicted to breakdown

Another popular model – the Ford Focus – is predicted to leave up to 1,000 families stranded on the driveway, followed by the Volkswagen Golf with nearly 900.

Warranty Direct managing director, David Gerrans, said: “A huge number of families expect to travel to see relatives on Christmas day; sadly, breakdowns could result in thousands of cold turkeys.

“The winter is generally tougher on many electrical and mechanical components, which can increase the chances of a breakdown. The only option is to be vigilant when it comes to maintenance.”